India Go Down to Israel !

37th Chess Olympiad Round 11 Report

With Super Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand having a really bad tournament team India the number 2 seeds in the tournament continued to perform well below par as they lost to 6th seed Israel in the 11th round of the 37th chess olympiad being held in Turin.

Anand was held to a draw by GM Boris Gelfand in a Sicilian in just 23 moves. This was his 7th succesive draw in what has been a very poor tournament for him. Most probably he is suffering from over exertion coming as he is from the M-tel Masters where he finished 3rd.

GM P.Harikrishna was also held to a draw by GM Emil Sutovsky ranked 60 Elo points below him. The game was a Scandinavian, which is rarely seen at this level . Harikrishna with white may not have been fully prepared for this opening and held on for a draw after an exciting middle game which saw a see saw battle for supremacy.

On the Second board GM Sasikiran lost to GM Ilia Smirin with black pieces in a sicilian game lasting for 84 moves. Sasikiran appeared to be in control of the game throughout but an ill timed Rook for Bishop sacrifice on move 35 cost him valuable tempo and he went down fighting.

On the last board GM Sandipan Chanda played a poor game Against GM Boris Avrukh of Israel in a Queens Indian game which lasted for 62 moves. The players exchanged pieces rapidly outof the opening and Chanda came out a pawn down. With the White Central pawns looking very menacing , Chanda playing black, tried his best to equalise but could not keep them from queening. With nothing else to stop the e pawn from queening Chanda resigned on move 62.

Russia - USA: Kamsky drew Kramnik . Onischuk drew Svidler. Kaidanov comfortably drew Bareev. Nakamura defeated super GM Grischuk which gave USA a 2.5-1.5 win over Russia and basically eliminated Russia from Gold medal contention.

At the top of the leader board the Armenian team defeated the Czech 3-1 and practically secured the Gold with Russia's loss. This further proves that the Armenian team work, camraderie and national pride plays a big role in their incredible success in the Olympiad.

Standings After round 11: Top 5 teams

Men :
Armenia 32.0
China and France 28.5
Russia and USA 28.0

India is tied at 26th place with 25.5 points.

Women:
Ukraine 25.5
Russia 24.5
China 23.5
USA and India 21.5

Category: Chess , The Chess Olympiad